


Cold Mornings

by actualkoschei



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: AU, Domestic Fluff, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Saren Survives, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 04:02:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13628214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualkoschei/pseuds/actualkoschei
Summary: A morning on a family holiday in a better version of the timeline.





	Cold Mornings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WahlBuilder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/gifts).



The first snow of winter on Earth came on light and sudden, unexpected. London woke to an eerie quiet, a white haze in the air and a world gilded silver. Theo Shepard sighed, pulled the blankets back over his shoulders, and turned over, prepared to grab another twenty minutes, maybe half an hour of sleep. Not a year hence he had saved the world. It owed him that much. And the chill of the air had crept inside, but yet his bed was still warm. The two bodies framing his, one soft skin and corded muscle, the other thick hide and slender limbs, were warmer. He curled against Kaidan's back. Kaidan was a heat source, he thought, Garrus a heat sink, and in this weather, Kaidan's warmth was better for cuddling.

"Get your cold hands off me, Shepard." Kaidan groaned, voice thick with sleep, evidentially not agreeing with Theo's assessment. 

Instead, Theo worked his hands up under the soft fleece shirt Kaidan wore as winter pajamas, and burrowed his face into the nape of his neck, wisps of curls tickling his nose. "'S cold, though. You're warm. Make me warm."

Kaidan sighed, still sounding sleepy, and bothered, and rolled over, yanking Theo against his chest. "Yeah. Okay. Fine. Go back to sleep. What time is it, anyway? Too damn early."

   
Theo raised his face and glanced over Kaidan's shoulder, somewhat resentfully. "It's 7.15. Yeah. Time for more sleep." He agreed, letting his head fall again and his eyes close.

Twenty minutes more of sleep turned into two hours. For the humans, at least. Garrus was up only ten minutes after their brief awakening, but the cold was even more offensive to his turian physiology. Wet chill like this was simply foreign to Palavan, and to his systems. He could not, however, bring himself to stay in bed waiting for his husbands. Shepard's hoodie, thrown casually over a desk chair the night before, provided somewhat of a barrier to the cold.

In the kitchen, he drifted to the bench that had been designated for dextro food, and started to prepare the coffee machine. Coffee was not precisely an accurate designation here. Real bean coffee was strictly levo-amino. This "coffee" was merely a weak stimulant dyed, flavored, and scented to approximate real coffee. Still, Garrus had developed a fondness for the smell of coffee during his time with two human husbands, and this was the closest he could get to tasting it without a nasty itch in his throat and a swollen tongue.

The coffee machine was a loud thing, producing an obnoxious rattle. Garrus frowned after he turned it off, having, as always, managed to repress that knowledge since the last morning. As he was occupied watching black-brown liquid drip into his mug, he felt a small tug on the hem of his hoodie. The urgent gesture of a small being wanting attention. Garrus turned, dropping a hand to fondle the still-soft crest of a young turian. "Hello, Des."

Desolas -- the younger, of course – was looking up at him with big blue eyes, a small clawed hand fastened firmly to his hoodie.

"What is it?" Garrus asked. It wasn't easy to make Des talk at the best of time. He was a peculiar, quiet child, oddly self-possessed, none of the brash exuberance expected from turians of that age. Rumor had it that he had inherited it from his father, that Saren had once been the same. Garrus could believe it. Even now, Saren was quiet, somewhere under his brusque grumpy exterior, but again, Garrus could not judge properly, much of that could have been the haunting of the war, of his part in it.

But under Garrus's urging, Des did speak. "Breakfast?"

Garrus chuckles. "Go sit at the table. I'll make you some." He poured packaged dried hot cereal, enough for two bowls, and water, into a pot, stirring as it thickened. Desolas was quiet again, swinging his legs in the adult-sized dining chair.

From the doorway, Saren watched. He had long practice going unnoticed. Mostly for purposes much shadier than watching Garrus Vakarian serve his son breakfast. Garrus was as good as a relative to the child. In fact, by marriage, he was, through the tenuous link of Garrus's marriage to Shepard, Saren's marriage to David Anderson, the father-son relationship between Anderson and Shepard. 

Saren did not move to disturb them, to reveal his presence. It was enough to watch the scene of domestic bliss, something that he still refused to acknowledge could contain him as a part of it. Despite the rumbled bed, full of David's sleeping form, that he had just left. 

He couldn't hide for long, not once his son caught sight of him. "Dad!"

Saren stepped out of his spot, bringing forth a softer expression, if not quite a smile. "Good morning, Desolas. Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, Dad." He smiled, and there was some of the mischief he should have at his age.

"Good." Saren settled himself beside him, petting his crest as he went. 

Garrus tried not to let his manner stiffen. He should be well past being afraid or resentful of Saren. "Cold, isn't it?"

"Rather." Saren was, it seemed, as relaxed as he ever got. "You grew up on Palaven proper, didn't you? You must not be used to this."

"That's right." Garrus relaxed for real then. At least mostly. "It was ungodly hot there. That I can handle. But this..." He allowed himself a shiver.

"I think," Saren said carefully, "that one can understand better why humans are the way they are when you remember that they came from a planet where this kind of weather is normal for near half the year."

"How so?"

"They aren't same. They're simply... adapted to the unreasonable." 

   
Garrus rolled his eyes. "Oh, it isn't  _that_  bad!"

"Unreasonable!" Saren repeated, and for once it was obvious he was joking, feigning the sour opinionated attitude everyone expected of him.

"Remember that you're not even supposed to  _be_ here. We could have left you on the Normandy and enjoyed our holiday without you, and that would have been well within the boundaries of what the court system expected."

"David would never have let you."

"I would have asked Shepard to make him. A Spectre outranks a Captain. And I'm married to two of them." Garrus preened a bit at saying it. Still proud of being able to.

Saren huffed, shook his head. "Damn privileges. I would have a found a way."


End file.
